The U.S. Air Force has awarded defense technology developer ZeroEyes a $750,000 research grant to develop and deploy a “Drone-Robot Enabled Active Shooter Deterrence” at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, using drones to respond to active shooter threats on the base, reports Yahoo Finance.
According to a statement issued by the Pennsylvania-based ZeroEyes, founded by Navy SEALs and Special Operations military veterans, the gun detection software employs artifical intelligence to identify a shooter and location of the threat, and then eliminate it. When the software identifies a gun, it will deploy a drone kitted with non-lethal strobe lights and sirens to distract active shooters until authorities can intervene. ZeroEyes claims it can proactively identify guns before the first shot is fired, all using preexisting networked security cameras with a 3 to 5 second time between detection and reporting.